Goodbye, Analog
Today marks the end of Analog TV broadcasting and the final switch to digital only broadcasting in the USA otherwise known as the DTV transition. The date was changed at least once and the process took a little longer than was initially expected, but the time has now come to say farewell to Analog TV. If you're reading this and you have no idea what I'm talking about then check to see if you're using an antenna and if not, you're probably okay... The biggest question is how could you have missed all the annoying "Are you Ready" ads by Comcast and other various announcements saying that you can get a converter box and you need to be ready for digital? Even YouTube has joined the party and is celebrating or marking the occasion with a Goodbye, Analog YouTube Animated logo:
Getting rid of the Analog TV broadcast frees up a huge amount of airwaves for future use. I'm hoping that this could help with some new modern 4G wireless networks that will be faster and better than ever. I'm sure this is still a little while off and it'll cost you extra money... Or maybe some more open free to the public band for newer WiFi would work. Either way, I welcome the new uses of the airwaves.
In the meantime, I just want to say welcome to Digital TV and Goodbye, Analog...
Apple undercuts Palm
Apple iPhone 3GS
The Palm Pre was just released on Saturday at $199. Reports seem to be consistently saying that Palm was successful in selling the quantities that they wanted over the weekend. The Palm Pre looks like a great device with lots of potential for techy consumers that want some thing new and something non-Apple, Blackberry, etc.
The biggest question for Palm is whether they'll be able to continue selling their device. Today at the big Apple Keynote for the WWDC, Apple made this question even bigger. Apple has officially announced a new device, the Apple iPhone 3GS with a superior camera and a few great new features at $199 for 16GB and $299 for 32GB. What's more potentially disastrous for Palm is that they also announced that the old iPhone 3G 8GB will continue to be sold and is now priced at $99. That price is the same as several phones that are nowhere near as good as the iPhone and $100 less than the Palm Pre.
These two announcements quickly took over the "Trending Topics" on Twitter.com and flooded all the tech blogs quickly. The biggest question for Palm will be if they can regain the hype online around their phone and whether they'll do anything to counteract this challenge or if they feel their phone speaks for itself at it's current price and with it's current marketing. I don't know any non-tech friends that know a thing about the Palm Pre and I'm concerned that they haven't made it desired enough. I think the competition is great and I don't think Apple's news will kill Palm (or others for that matter), but it does present even more challenges for other phone manufacturers as Apple continues to add to their feature sets.